


The Prince That Was Given

by rangerkier



Category: BomBARDed (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 22:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerkier/pseuds/rangerkier
Summary: Raz'ul definitely wasn't snooping around somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. But that didn't stop him from finding something he was never meant to see.





	The Prince That Was Given

Raz’ul carefully shut the door behind him and finally enjoyed the first quiet moment he’d gotten since returning to the Mountain. He pulled the candle he had known he would need out of his pocket, found a holder and lit it. Then he walked into room, leaving footprints in the layer of dust where he stepped. He knew it would be like this, it had always been like this. It wasn’t forbidden or anything, but no one ever came in here. If they wanted to read something, whether just for pleasure or research, there was a much grander library a few floors down, with high walls and intricately carved pillars. This room looked like it had been carved out by one person with just a hammer and chisel. Besides, there wasn’t anything in this room that wouldn’t be in the other library.

So Raz’ul had carefully snuck away from his family and made his way here, knowing that no one would think to look here when they inevitably did. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family, he did. Just that they were _so much_. Especially now that he had been away for a few years, it was like they were even more. Maybe that was just because he was no longer used to them. They had their disagreements, of course, but most of the time those worked out all right.

Most of the time. His back still felt empty without Usumptin’s weight on it.

He pushed the thought aside and took a few more steps, dragging his hand across one of the tables as he went, leaving even more trails in the dust behind him. Absently, he looked at the books surrounding him. It wasn’t like he had come here to read, just to get a few moments without his father’s booming voice filling his head. But he might as well give himself to do.

As he walked, briefly glancing at each book and waiting for one to jump out at him, something else caught his eye. Underneath a few of the books, like they had been picked up for it to be placed there, was what looked like a small black cloth, the corner of it just sticking out past the spines of the books. Placing his other hand on the books to hold them in place, Raz’ul grabbed hold of the cloth and pulled it out from beneath them. It was just what it looked like, a small black cloth, but such an item would be completely out of place in here. Besides that, it was familiar. He unfolded it, and unfolded it, and unfolded it, and unfolded it.

His hunch confirmed, he glanced around and realized the room was too crowded to place the hole. He set the cloth, now about two feet in either dimension, back on the table and pushed it against the wall. For good measure, he turned around and did the same with the other table, creating an empty space in the middle of the room. He picked the cloth back up and shook it out, laying it on the floor once it had reached its full size.

And, sure enough, in front of him there was now a hole, six feet across and probably closer to ten feet deep. It was dark down there, even for him, but he could make out one lone object sitting in the middle.

Raz’ul looked around the room, if he was going to get whatever it was out, he needed a way to get himself out of the hole. There was no way he was jumping or climbing out of there without something else. If he had his pack with him, he’d have plenty of rope, but there hadn’t been a reason to carry it with him since reaching Mount Tain. If he left to try to get it, he’d probably run into someone before he could make it to his room. Even if he did make it, anyone he passed by would question him if was walking through the halls with either his pack or a winding of rope. The other possibility was to fold the hole back up, take it with him and find time to check it out when he could more easily get himself out. But something told him that neither of those were options; if he wanted to know what was down there, he had to get it out now. 

There were tapestries on every wall in the little room. Raz’ul walked over to one and tugged on it to find it was in surprisingly good shape considering how long this room had been left unoccupied. If he could drape it into the hole, it would probably hold him so he could climb his way back out. First he had to get it down. 

He grabbed one of the chairs and dragged it over to the wall. Even standing on the seat, he had to stretch to reach the top of the tapestry and get it off its hook. But down it came, folding onto the floor as he lowered it. Raz’ul shimmied it out from behind the chair and dragged it toward the hole, where he attached it to the closest table leg before tossing it down. These tables were solid and heavy, and piled high with books and who knew what else. He’d found an extra-dimensional portable hole, there could be anything in here. But the point was, the table should stay in place even after he placed his weight onto the tapestry now hanging from it. And if something went wrong, well, he had the Ira Glass. He would deal with the embarrassment and call for help. But he’d cross that bridge if he got to it.

He sat on the edge of the hole, grabbed hold of the tapestry, and carefully let himself slip off solid ground. He lowered himself down, landing with a small thump after dropping the last foot or so. And he turned to look at the object that was down here.

It was only six feet across. He knew that. It obviously wasn’t that big. But somehow it seemed to go on forever. Maybe it was the darkness. Being in an unlit hole in a dimly lit room, the blackness didn’t look like a wall, but like a tunnel that went on eternally into oblivion. His head began to swim and he wondered how Yashee could have dealt with claustrophobia at the bottom of one of these.

Shaking his head clear, he focused on the object that sat in the middle of the hole, ignoring everything else around him. Stepping forward, he saw it was a book. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands, the cover was blank, a journal. He wedged it under his belt and went back to the tapestry to climb out. Even with his dark vision, his eyes would strain if he tried to read anything down here.

Fortunately, his judgement of both the tapestry and the table proved to be accurate and he made his way out with relative ease, the weakest link in the chain being his climbing ability. Once out, he left the hole and the tapestry, more curious about this journal that had been hidden inside a portable hole and tucked under several books in the old library. 

Walking around the hole back toward the candle light, he turned the book over again, even though he had already seen that it was blank. Only it wasn’t. In the light, he could see faded, hand-written letters on the front cover of the book.

_Raz’ul_

His heart skipped a beat. Why did the journal he found in the abandoned library, under a pile of other books, at the bottom of an extra-dimensional hole have his name on it? He opened it and started to read the familiar writing. 

_Last night, there was a knock on the door to my chambers. I found it odd, as the guards should have stopped anyone who approached, especially at such a late hour, but ignored it. Surely the guards were there, surely they would handle it._

_But the knock came again. With a sigh, I pushed myself up and went to see what could possibly be so important. When I opened the door, however, there was no one there._

_What was there was little more than a box, now resting just in front of my feet. The only thing I could see within was a soft looking fabric, but when I lifted it, it was heavier than a mere blanket would have made it._

_Inside, there was a child, a baby._

_My mind, the logical side at least, told me to bring it to the orphanage, hand it off to the caretakers and let them deal with it._

_But there was something else, something I can’t explain._

_This child is mine. My son. My Prince._

_I do not know what I will tell anyone, my advisors or the triplets, when they ask. But I know this is how it is meant to be. This child that is sleeping quietly next to me even as I write this is my son. I have already given him a name._

_It is the name I had intended to give my first born son. And I would have, had two more not immediately followed. It never seemed fair, them being triplets, to give one of them the first born’s name._

_And so, instead of my eldest, I have named my youngest son Raz’ul._

He pushed the journal further back on the desk and stepped away from it, like he couldn’t put enough distance between himself and it. His breath was heavy now as he stared at the floor in disbelief.

He had known. His name was on the cover. As he read about the child that had been left in front of a door, he’d known instantaneously that it was him. That didn’t make reading the confirmation of that fact any easier. 

Who was he? He wasn’t Daz’ul’s son, not by blood at least. Where had he come from, and why was he left there? Who could have even managed that? It said he’d been left at the door to Daz’ul’s personal chambers. That was a fair way into the mountain, and pretty heavily guarded. But there hadn’t even been anyone there, even with the multiple knocks.

An image flashed into his mind. A dark room, illuminated by faintly glowing runes across the walls and the light seeping in from outside. Through an open door in the shape of a lute. Above that door, carved in a scrawl of common:

_A prince will be given that will claim Usumptin_

A prince will be _given_.

He’d read that wrong back then. It read like a prophecy, so he read it like a prophecy. One that had not yet come to pass. But it wasn’t in the future. It wasn’t saying that he would take Usumptin, not anymore. 

It was a prophecy that had been fulfilled long ago, and he was the answer.


End file.
